Yume no Ai
by NekoYakumo
Summary: In this story, Seto Kaiba is a person with saddening past who created the world of Yu-Gi-Oh! as a fantasy of his. He hopes to find love, but what if he knows love in the real world... (Yami Bakura X Yami Malik, Seto X Yami, hints of Yami X Yuugi)


Konbanwa, everybody! As always, my name is MistressNekoSakura- not my true name, but I nonetheless hope that you enjoy this fic. ^ _ ^ That said, on to the disclaimer and author's notes. (  
  
Disclaimer: Nope, I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh!; I wish I did, though; I could be able to make these into AU manga, then, if I had an ounce of drawing ability. ^ _ ^  
  
Author's Note: Shounen-ai pairings in this fic include Yami Malik X Yami Bakura, Seto X Yami, and hints of Yami X Yuugi. ^ _ ^ This fic does get quite depressing at times, so I advise drinking a six-pack of soda beforehand to take care of any depression. That said, I present you with Yume No Ai, a fic with shounen-ai in it.  
  
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Outside the Kaiba mansion, it was a clear and dark evening, the skies already becoming a light blue with no hint of bad weather whatsoever. Inside, Seto Kaiba ignored all of it, focusing on an important task, a labor of love. Nothing could have disturbed the young teenage boy as he sat at his deck, pen in hand and notebook open before him.  
  
The door to Seto's room was locked, shutting him out from the hustle and bustle of the outside world and leaving him here in quiet and peace. The room itself was lavish, and yet bare; it lacked any personal touch, serving as little more than a place to sleep for the young Kaiba, who far wanted to distance himself from the world. This made the young teen come off as cold and distant; as if he were a visitor to an inferior world, longing for the romantic beauty of his home.  
  
His deep blue eyes, pools of intelligence and depth that engaged a person and froze them in his view, were narrowed as he bent over, furiously writing into his notebook. A variety of conflicting emotions seemed to pass behind them, but they held fast and kept up the façade, allowing no one to see within. He had neat and orderly brown hair, which now lay tousled about his head.  
  
His skin was bright and vibrant, yet at the same time seemed to be dullened by a strange depression that made him look all the more shadowed and downcast. Tall and skinny, his back was arched in a black chair as he bent over his work with a lot of concentration, wearing clothing that seemed to greatly resemble a school uniform, though it was summer. The clothes were slackened, unbuttoned slightly to reveal the undershirt that so obviously lay underneath- this evening's cool summer breeze was outweighed by the hot and uncomfortable feeling brought on by the heat. Kaiba seemed to be ignoring it all, however, lost in his work.  
  
The object of Seto's concentration lay on the desk before him. It was a simple notebook, blue and ring-bound, and yet it held that which kept him alive, that which was his only joy in this world. For days upon days, he had sat there, working calmly and coolly. It seemed as if he relished the work before him. Every morning this summer, he had risen, taken breakfast, and then shut himself in his room for hours upon hours, working away at this labor of love.  
  
His brothers Noa and Mokuba, his stepfather Gosaburo, the servants- everyone had tried to bring him out of this room, to take him into the outside world, but he would have none of it. He just sat there, quietly working for most of the day.  
  
When he threw himself into this joyous work, he tended to forget most everything. Sometimes, he would even forget to eat lunch- this was evidenced by the plate of salad and the drink that lay on the table next to him, lunch forgotten in the passion of his work. Dinner, a meat dish that had been Seto's favourite before he had become involved in this work, also lay untouched and uneaten. The water sent up with it, however, had been quickly drunk- gulped down and tossed aside before its drinker returned to work.  
  
It was well into the night now, and almost everyone, save Seto of course, had gone to bed. But Seto was still up, fervently working away. He was pushing himself as hard as he could, not even stopping for nourishment. He was tired, and wanted to simply fall asleep on the desk. Still he worked, the page before him getting blurry. The lights in the room, bright as they were, increased the uncomfortable feeling brought on by the heat. Still he worked on, writing and writing. But it never seemed to get anywhere; the world he longed to bring to life seemed unresponding today, and so he thought of how it all began.  
  
His labor of love had started years ago; he and his brother Mokuba became orphans upon the day that their parents had died. Before long, their father's brother, Gosaburo Kaiba the famed industrialist, took them in out of his good will and caring, There, Mokuba came to know a family, since he had never really known his real one, being the youngest. He soon spent most of his time with Gosaburo's sun, Noa, leaving the older Kaiba alone.  
  
With Mokuba soon leaving his older brother to fend for his own devices, he was depressed and disturbed. The kindness and love he had felt from having a family had mostly been shattered; Mokuba, his only other family, had long since left him behind, recovering from the death of a family he never really knew and enjoying the color and brilliance of life.  
  
But he was still crushed about this, still shocked; his world, with the loss of all who cared about him, suddenly became meaningless. His uncle never really loved them; sure, he was kind towards them, but it was out of a sense of duty to their parents he had adopted them. Seto refused to turn to the outside world; whatever shallow love they would provide would only be for something; for money, for power, for wealth..  
  
True love, that which young Kaiba hoped to gain, was the only thing he could ever have now; it was the closest thing to unconditional love and affection, someone who cared, someone with whom he could walk down the roads of life together with, facing many an experience with; someone whom, when he left that road and walked on to the grasping beyond of death, would have made his life worthy to live, someone who could join with him in the delights of the world's light.  
  
Sadly, he was unable to find someone who could color his life and give him that which he missed; few around him seemed to care enough, few around him were, in his mind, lacking unconditional love- there was and would always be some condition that came along with it, he felt, and he wished to avoid that. So, he stayed away from the real world.  
  
Instead, he tried to find that which he was searching for in fantasy, in imagination. In his mind, he always thought about this world of his, this perfect world; where all he was searching for was his, where he knew this love, where he and his brother were close, where this world was colored and brilliant and beautiful, romantic in its notions. Here, his emotions played out in a world fleshed out to fantastical proportions; here, the chaos of his emotions were ordered and set the way he wanted it.  
  
Before long, his world become too vivid to keep locked up within his head. Within days, he seized a notebook, taking every chance he could to write in it and further give life to this perfect world of his. Before long, his world began reflecting the real one the way he wanted it. People he saw and people who tried to reach him, people he heard and people he knew; all of them went into the notebook, twisted and changed, names and personalities being altered to Kaiba's liking.  
  
One particular subject, one that become the focus of some of his stories was a boy who tried to reach out to him, someone who tried to lead him into the light as Kaiba so wanted; a person by the name of Yuugi Mutou. Tall and slender, he had a unique hairstyle of blond and purple spikes, jutting out in almost layers. He had purple eyes, and they seemed to change as his posture did. One minute he was dark, intimidating, and his eyes became judgemental and yet kind; the next minute, he was. Well, it seemed he was brighter and younger with his other personality.  
  
Both were mysteries to each other, and they both tried to puzzle each other out and figure out each other. Yuugi seemed determined to break through to him for some reason, while his own thoughts on Yuugi were never really clear. Was he friend, or foe? Was he that which he was searching for, or just another faceless one seeking a romance that was more of a conquest than anything? Whatever the case, he definitely knew there was something about the two of them that would intertwine their destinies- what it was, was another story.  
  
It was now summer, and he had not seen Yuugi in a while; still, whatever he felt with this person seemed to be a mix of guiding light and encroaching darkness. Darkness and yet light; conflicting natures seemed to be within this person, warm and yet cold. All of that aside, Yuugi was still interwoven into his stories, becoming a pivotal character; almost as if this stranger was slowly becoming a pivotal part in the fantasies that Seto cherished; and representing his conflicting nature, hints of this did show up in the fantasy world- still, it was hesitant, as was his own feelings in the real world. In the story, the chaotic aura of Yuugi was represented as him having a Yami personality and a hikari one, complete with interesting origins.  
  
Yuugi and Seto were not the only ones who played a part in this strange fantasy world; Mokuba, the brother who had become distant from him, was a little brother who was a shadow of his elder, almost the family that Kaiba longed for but now felt was irreplaceable. Gosaburo, their uncaring adoptive father, became one who groomed Seto for a nefarious purpose after the death of his son Noa. At the moment. Gosaburo would have just been left as a dead man, but his fantasy urged him to create a way to defeat part of that which made his world colorless and chaotic.  
  
Other people he knew by association and by meeting found themselves woven into the tapestry of dreams that was this story. Seto Kaiba leaned back in his seat; his fantasy felt ready for creation, and yet his pen refused to weave his paradise. He came to think about the others who had found their way into his work; a caustic-tounged idiot in the streets who seemed to somehow dislike him became Katsuya Jounouchi, the hothead- his more calm friend became Honda Hiroto, a tiny bit more rational.  
  
More and more, the story kept reverting back to Yuugi and Seto, and the obstacles they faced; currently, they were only Pegasus J. Crawford, real-life business man of seriousness turned puppet manipulated for love. But as the story wrote on, it became more and more the romantic fantasy he would like to live in; a fantasy he was, at the moment, using to separate himself from the real world..  
  
More and more, the chaotic flames between them were evoked, raging afire as the fantasy world turned to a picture of Kaiba's conflicting emotions, the feelings that this Yuugi evoked.  
  
More and more was Kaiba stepping into the light of a fantasy world, leaving behind the darkness..  
  
With a sigh, Kaiba lay back. His life was conflicted, now; it seemed as if meeting Yuugi would finally quell this confusion, would finally keep the chaos from raging. Mayhaps, he could learn the truth as to his conflicting emotions with Yuugi. Maybe, he could learn if the joy he wanted or colorless despair lay with him.  
  
Tiredly, he collapsed asleep in his chair, uncomfortable, yet not caring as his concerns rocked his dreams..  
  
This must be bad. ^ _ ^ Please don't flame me too badly. Ja ne! 


End file.
